Maura Kelly has no room for big love

Last week Marie Claire blogger Maura Kelly wrote a post that as of Sunday afternoon had garnered over 3,000 comments. In her post“Should ‘Fatties’ Get a Room? (Even on TV?)” Kelly discusses the CBS sitcom “Mike & Molly,” a show about a couple who meets in Overeaters Anonymous, and asks readers if they feel uncomfortable when they see displays of affection between two overweight individuals on television.

Kelly writes that her editor steered her to a CNN article about “Mike & Molly” that reported that the show has drawn complaints for its abundance of fat jokes and well as grumblings from some viewers who are uneasy watching intimacy between two plus-sized actors. So Kelly’s editor asked her, “Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?”

Kelly’s thoughts:

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese!And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

Kelly goes on to say that she’s not a “size-ist jerk” because she has “a few friends who could be called plump,” you know, like people who exclaim they’re not racist because they have black friends.

As you might have guessed there was an uproar in the blogosphere in response to Kelly’s post, a post that seems out of place on a blog for Marie Claire, a magazine that features a column called “Big Girl in a Skinny World” by 5’2″ 220 pound stylist Ashley Falcon.

Kelly has since issued an apology and even admitted that her

extreme reaction might have grown out of her own body issues (Kelly has was once an anorexic).

What do you think of Kelly’s post and of the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly?

1 Comments

I think its messed up how she wrote that article. Basically saying that large people don’t deserve to be on TV. Granted, I haven’t watched the show cause I think it puts larger people in a bad light. Just an excuse to tell fat jokes for 22 minutes. The comments that Kelly made were just wrong and mean-spirited. I’m sure the show is funny, it was created by Chuck Lorre who did Big Bang Theory and that show is hilarious.Big people need love too, I’m sure, but to ridicule them that’s just foul.